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Sunday, August 5, 2012

August 5, 2012
Wow, has it really been almost a year?! I quite fell off the writing wagon...I'll get to the reasons later.

Things are quite different this Ramadan. For one, I'm engaged to a beautiful, sweet, amazing Egyptian man who is constantly teaching me to have trust, taking care of me, and filling my days with happiness (anyone throw up?). It is because of him that my experience this Ramadan is so drastically different.

Last year- I was single and enjoying the trials of fasting and figuring out how much to eat at iftar, how much water to drink through the night, and how to balance sahoor with sleep.
This year- I've been doing it Egyptian style. (at least for two weeks). Yes, I only made it through two weeks of fasting, and not as well as last year, either. You see, my fiance is not religious (like me) and doesn't feel the need to fast. While I wasn't fasting for religious reasons, he couldn't see the necessity in it. So after two weeks of him eating and drinking in front of me, I gave up. It was just too hard.

Last year- because I learned how much to eat, I ate less, and my stomach capacity seemed to shrink. I also worked out after iftar and spent most of the night out of the house, enjoying Cairo.
This year- having iftar with a large, Egyptian family has already caused me to gain 1 kilo. In two weeks. Yeesh! Instead of having small portions, we stuff ourselves with many types of food for hours...including desserts and juices. I've been too full to even eat sahoor, and still gained weight. I'm starting to see a trend here for the diabetes epidemic....
There is no working out after iftar, as we are too bloated and saturated with food to even move. So...no working out, shnarfing down huge quantities of food...you can see my conundrum.